From Project to Mainstream in a constrained environment: Towards openness at the University of Cape Town Laura Czerniewicz Gregory Doyle Glenda Cox Cheryl Hodgkinson- Williams Cambridge 2012, 16-18 April 2012 Structure of presentation Laura Czerniewicz Glenda Cox Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams Gregory Doyle Inculcating openness at UCT:An institutional perspective Laura Czerniewicz Director: OpenUCT Initiative University of Cape Town laura.czerniewicz@uct.ac.za Some premises OERs overlap with Open access and Elearning OER part of a broader open movement Innovation usually starts with soft funding (external & internal) Institutional context and culture critical to how OER and open agenda play out Policy definition: Tight Policy definition: Loose Control of implementation: Loose Control of implementation: Tight Institutional cultural types Collegium Enterprise Corporation Bureaucracy McNay, I. (1995). From collegial academy to corporate enterprise: The changing cultures of universities. McNay, I. (1995). From collegial academy to corporate enterprise: The changing cultures of universities. In T. Schuller (Ed.), The changing university. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press. A study of the relationship between institutional policy, organisational culture and e-learning use in four South African universities Laura Czerniewicz *, Cheryl Brown in Computers & Education 53 (2009) 121–131 Policy definition: Tight Policy definition: Loose Control of implementation: Loose Control of implementation: Tight Institutional cultural types Collegium Enterprise Corporation Bureaucracy The collegium type Characterised by loose institutional policy definition informal networks and decision arenas and innovation at the level of the individual or department. (McNay 1995) The organisational response ’laissez faire’, few targeted policies or processes (Rossiter, 2007). Core value of collegium is freedom Defines organizational expectations in terms of freedom from external controls (Yee-Tak 2006) Rossiter, D. (2007) Whither e-learning? Conceptions of change and innovation in higher education. Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change. 4 (1), pp.93–107. From http://edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de/5730/1/Wan_Yee-Tak.pdf Student Expectations in the New Millennium —An Explorative Study of the Higher Education in Hong Kong, Dissertation, zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie an der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, vorgelegt von Yee-Tak Wan aus Hongkong, LMU München, 2006 University of Cape Town Oldest South African university Top ranked African university QS World University Rankings The Times Higher Education World University Rankings Academic Ranking of World Universities Medium sized +/- 25 000 students 982 permanent academics (of 5 442 total staff) Prestigious research university 5 Nobel Laureates Booker Prize winner Numerous internationally recognised research initiatives Africa Earth Observatory Network (AEON The Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics is an international centre for research in the fields of cosmology and topology. The Department of Physics is home to the UCT-CERN research centre, The Department of Electrical Engineering is involved in the development of technology for the Karoo Array Telescope (KAT), a precursor to the Square Kilometer Array From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Cape_Town Teaching at UCT Residential Face to face Almost no distance ed Not set up for “non-traditional” courses Funding subsidy for headcount & throughput (not curriculum or content) Centre for Higher Educational Development active, strong academic development There's a 'teaching input' subsidy that works on the basis of enrolled students (full-time equivalents, not just headcount). It's weighted by subject category, so an Engineering or Music student earns more than a regular Hum or Commerce student. Also weighted by academic level, but not in a very nuanced way. This element is by far the biggest of the overall teaching (as opposed to research-related) subsidy. The 'teaching output' subsidy funds graduate output, so this is the reward for success. But it's not very large, only about 14% of total teaching subsidy at present. It's calculated in a fairly complicated way but a university can improve the size of its slice of the cake by improving its grad output relative to other universities'. Overall, the output incentive is commonly said to be not large enough to persuade institutions to privilege success over access, but it's certainly not negligible. For a growth-averse institution like UCT, it's important. (Scott 2012, pers comm) Bear in mind that Masters (the research component) and doctoral grads are funded from a different pot, and output here is seen to be quite lucrative (tho no-one does the cost-vs-income sums properly) 2007 Open agenda at UCT: projects 2008 2010 2012 2013 2009 2011 2014 Opening Scholarship Scholar to scholar and scholar to community- traditional sites of open access movement Scholar student – traditional site of elearning Our approach to the openness agenda in the light of UCT’s culture Strategic approaches Individual agency/ control Maximum flexibility Network / community building Enabling (not requiring) Champions at different levels Collegium culture: loose institutional policy definition informal networks and decision arenas and innovation at the level of the individual or department. (McNay 1995) Historically Opportunities for open agenda in the eLearning space (CHED)(rather than OA ) Contributed to change strategy No institutional repository Multiplicity Multiple strategies Many small sites of innovation and activity, aiming for agglomeration across the institution, to achieve critical mass Change at all levels of the university Develop networks and build community Champions At senior level DVC signs Cape Town Declaration (2008) VC signs Berlin Declaration (2011) Champions Senior & middle level OER Health Sciences - Dean Champions Bringing the work of “early adopters” above the radar Champions & change In our experience of our cultural context Senior level support symbolic Vertical relationships do not cause change per se, only when actual projects in place (eg HS) Champions work best in horizontal networked relationships, building communities of practice New roles and reconfigurations The rise of the non-specialist “expert,” (or the “extended professional”) The second key concept is the power of individuals to make a positive contribution to bringing about change. According to Giddens’ ‘structuration theory’ (1984), power resides in the meshing of individual action with organisational structures; individuals can become ‘extended professionals’ (Hoyle, 1969) and act strategically to make a positive contribution to bringing about change (Somekh & Thaler, 1997)… Incentives: small grants 9 small grants in 2011 £ 800 each Health Science, Engineering, Law, CHED, Science To create and/ or adapt OER From course level to smaller resources Incentives: small grants Academic agency Decentralised uploading Individual academics upload and maintain their resources directly Pride of authorship Quality assurance with the individual Quality assurance part of broader teaching and learning systems, not separate Minimal moderation Copyright compliance Flexibility Granularisation of resources important Whole courses Single resources Ebooks Presentations Podcasts Lecture notes Animations Images Institutional Community IP Law Unit Knowledge Co-op Citizen Science projects in COL Enterprise Content Management Project Eresearch Library Communications Office Faculties New IP policy Work enabled by new UCT IP Policy Specifically addresses issues relating to the creation of OER resources and the licensing processes to be followed Expressly states the support for publication of materials under Creative Commons licenses Intellectual Property policy and OER Creators of Open Educational Resources (OER) are to take note of and act in accordance with the newly-updated Intellectual Property (IP) policy of the University of Cape Town. The updated version now specifically addresses issues relating to the creation of OER resources and the licensing processes to be followed. The policy also now expressly states the support for publication of materials under Creative Commons licenses. In term of the updates, an Intellectual Property (IP) Advisory Committee is to be established to manage the processes relating to IP for UCT. Section 9 of the policy relates to creators of OER resources. It states that software development projects involving Open Source Licensing (OER) should, from the outset, submit the intended type of license agreement for review to the Research Contracts and Intellectual Property Services (RCIP) office for review in terms of compliance to South Africa’s Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Act and guidelines. Notable aspects of the updated policy also include IP related to the creation and licensing of films as a teaching learning medium/tool. Others are (Section 8.2): UCT automatically assigns to the author(s) the copyright, unless UCT has assigned ownership to a third party in terms of a research contract, in: Scholarly and literary publications Paintings, sculptures, drawings, graphics and photographs produced as an art form Recordings of musical performances and musical compositions Course materials, with the provision that UCT retains a perpetual, royalty-free, nonexclusive licence to use, copy and adapt such materials within UCT for the purposes of teaching and or research Film. How we are doing in terms of institutional participation Growth to date Faculty contributions Faculty contributions February 2010- March 2012 * Types of resources * Displays the most diverse number of authors per faculty - not necessarily the highest number of resources submitted by faculty Concluding comments A steady upswell rather than mainstream Integration of resourcing requirements into existing structures Acceptance of non-linear organic process Slow approach more likely to be sustainable & effective A research-based approach to inform strategy References Czerniewicz, L and Brown, C (2009) study of the relationship between institutional policy, organisational culture and e-learning use in four South African universities in Computers & Education 53 (2009) 121–131 McNay, I (1995) From collegial academy to corporate enterprise: The changing cultures of universities. In T. Schuller (Ed.), The Changing University. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press Rossiter, D (2007) Whither e-learning? Conceptions of change and innovation in higher education. Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change. 4 (1), pp.93–107 Yee-Tak , W (2006) Student Expectations in the New Millennium: An Explorative Study of Higher Education in Hong Kong, Dissertation, unpublished dissertation Technological considerations when creating OER -“the nuts and bolts” Gregory Doyle Faculty of Health Sciences: Education Development Unit gregory.doyle@uct.ac.za Technical issues OER team Institution http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandj98/3546292216/ The academic who wants to publish OER The team support OER The institution where to put the OER UCT signs Cape Town Open Education Declaration 2008 http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/ http://www.slideshare.net/ShihaamD/finding-open-stuff Telling academic what is available does not really help Internet Archive / Google advanced search / wiki media commons / creativecommons search Flickr / compfight / Flickr storm / pixabay / alegri photos / Creativity 103 / pic drome / geograph uk / Open images / wellcome images / opengraphic / deviantArt / DryIcons / AcademicEarth / KhanAcademy / OpenVideo Project FreeSound / FreeMusic Archive / Jamendo / CCMixter / FreeLoops / IntraText / SourceForge / MITOpenCourseWare / OER Commons / Connexions XKCD / AbstruseGoose The ‘ordinary’ academic Enabling factors Division of Labour: Time and effort http://teamdoubledouble.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/drivethruneon.jpg http://www.imageenvision.com/150/37952-clip-art-graphic-of-a-pink-guy-character-pushing-an-orange-orb-by-jester-arts.jpg http://www.omnitechsupport.com/img/technical-support.gif What are the enabling factors to support open practices for academics? Division of Labour: Are you concerned about the time and effort it will take? Time / Indexing / Publishing / Packaging / Who will pay for my time / Where will I find the information / What software do I need to know / Solution: Full time tech assistant. Part time administrators and reps http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Which license do I use, what does it mean, and where do I put it, how do I ensure I will get acknowledgement. Since we are suppose to be a 1 stop shop what can I do in terms of the university’s IP policy? And if I later want to publish it in a book and sell it? - Are my material being downloaded by whom, can I get some feedback / Licensing Example of Dr Freercks Solution: Access to OER IP and IP office Raise OER awareness and interest Source content (volunteers) Clear copyright (dScribe) Package OER Review OER (internal) Publish OER (repository) Publicize OER Production Process Content creation Creating interactive modules e.g., click and drag, simulations Lecture recording Convert PPT to video Automatically Video recording Procedures / lectures Converting videos Camtasia or similar tools for real-time interaction between learners/users of OER? As an example, there is an OpenStudy website (http://openstudy.com/) Copyright clearance & packaging dScribe Images – substitute / redraw / permission Packaging Bandwidth (video, compressing, annotating) OER-tech mailing list Recommended Practices for Packaging and Distributing OER http://open.umich.edu/education/med/oernetwork/guides/distrib-guidelines/2011 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/oer-tech UCT has 'white-listed' some OER sites so that they they do not count towards student's internet quota: http://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/oer-uct/2011/05/26/students-can-now-access-a-selection-of-international-oer-sites-freely Institutional issues How will resources be distributed What software platform to use http://www.marketingmo.com/common/files/distribution-channels.jpg?c34083 http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00FeaEfyuKANol/Stage-Platform-XF3-.jpg OER is hosted online and linked to the UCT OpenContent directory. - Search across institutional OER collections. There is OER Commons, GLOBE (Global Learning Objects Brokering Exchange), OCWC Consortium, DiscoverEd (?) and the Learning Registry is a new one -  a place for organizations or individuals to register their learning content  Via open content website as directory, using sakai as repository Drupal content management system. Lifetype for blogging Metadata : use a loosely defined oai_dc format. Our format is based on the requirements from OER Commons How do people find UCT OER http://www.slideshare.net/mpaskevi/365-days-of-openness OER Support @ UCT Conclusion http://files.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_213/2132805/file/motorcycle-courses-training-wheels-small-77878.jpg http://scm-l3.technorati.com/10/07/19/15067/community-manager.jpg Conclusion http://files.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_213/2132805/file/motorcycle-courses-training-wheels-small-77878.jpg http://scm-l3.technorati.com/10/07/19/15067/community-manager.jpg “Why would you do it, ... would a student actually be interested?” Understanding the barriers and enablers to academic contribution to an OER directory Glenda Cox Centre for Educational Technology University of Cape Town Glenda.cox@uct.ac.za About the research 6 interviews Science. Engineering, Commerce and Humanities From Professors to Lecturers Purposive sampling for range of faculty and rank 3 who have not contributed- to find out why not And 3 who have contributed, to find out why and also why they feel their colleagues have not added Pilot study more to follow Test Activity theory as a lens for understanding OER contribution and non-contribution Pilot study to test robustness of Activity theory but also to start collecting cases... The Activity system ( Engeström 1987) Kuutti (1996, p. 13) defines AT as “...a philosophical and cross-disciplinary framework for studying different forms of human practices as developmental processes, with both individual and social levels interlinked at the same time...”. Activity Theory enables the researcher to investigate activity within a social setting, which is also referred to as the activity system. Engeström (1987) formulated a model of the structure of this system which includes the subject, object, tools, division of labour, community, rules and outcome. In this system the Tools, Rules and Division of labour are the mediating artefacts through which the object is transformed into the outcome (Figure 1). These mediating artefacts influence how the subject (s) acts on the object in order to arrive at the outcome. The subject is therefore influenced by the rules of the system, the community and also the division of labour (Engestrom, 1987). One of the key principles of Activity theory as a dialectical theory is the concept of ‘contradiction’. Contradictions are historically present in Activity systems. When a new activity is introduced into the system internal ‘ primary’ contradictions result in “aggravated secondary contradictions where some old element collides with a new one...” (Engeström, 2001). Contradictions are present and are crucial driving forces of transformation ( Engeström and Sannino, 2010). Articulating the location of these contradictions in the system and overcoming them can transform the activity. These contradictions occur when there is a “misfit within elements, between elements, between different activities, or between different developmental phases of a single activity” (Kuutti, 1996, p.34). These contradictions can be visible or invisible, intentional or ‘...unintentional disturbances...’ (Engestrom, Brown, Christopher & Gregory, 1991, p.91) Framing the interviews Tools: Are their aspects about the directory itself that prevent academics adding materials? Object: Teaching materials for sharing Division of Labour: Are you concerned about the time and effort it will take? Community: Are their concerns around peers in the department not supporting OER? Are there concerns around poor quality materials? Subject: The academic Rules: Are concerns around the rules of promotion being based on research output and not teaching materials? Are there concerns about IP infringement or violation? Outcome: Open Education resources The Activity system (Interview questions) The research included reading much of the published material around motivations for contribution and concerns from various institutions. The literature together with the Activity theory nodes helped me group the concerns of academics from the literature and also to frame interview questions so.. ... Findings Barriers: purpose of OERs Tools Subject Object Division of Labour Community Rules Pedagogical Concerns about the purpose and use of OER Implicit rule: Outcome: Open Education resources “why would you do it;...would students actually be interested? And my materials “...may not make any sense to anybody else without lots of structure, and notes...” “Who cares” “Not convinced it would make a big difference to someone” “why would you do it;...would students actually be interested? And my materials “...may not make any sense to anybody else without lots of structure, and notes...” “Who cares?” “Not convinced it would make a big difference to someone” Barriers: concerns about quality Tools Subject Object Division of Labour Community Rules (implicit) Concerns about the quality of materials There was a concern about the time it would take to get materials “..it would take some time to get to the quality that I will be happy with to getting it online...” and a concern about the ‘correctness’. One academic said he had a 1000 slides he would like to share but the images needed to by updated and improved. “..it would take some time to get to the quality that I will be happy with to getting it online...” Barriers: culture of sharing Tools Subject Object Division of Labour Community Rules The influence of colleagues, no culture of sharing again “ who cares” but also one academic felt that there was not support and there needed to be a “unit wide and institutional conversation around adding content...” “It is not valued by my unit, so I wouldn’t worry about it” “...It is not valued by my unit, so I wouldn’t worry about it” Barriers: time Tools Subject Object Division of Labour Community Rules Time Time “there is a lot of extra work here...I do not have the time...” Enablers: an obligation to share Tools Subject Object Division of Labour Community Rules Enablers Value Outcome: Open Education Resources “ ... I think it's an obligation to share our knowledge with people who can’t afford these resources..." "...increase reach ability of resources that were previously only available in a few places..." “ ... I think it's an obligation to share our knowledge with people who can’t afford these resources..." "...increase reachability of resources that were previously only available in a few places..." Enablers: Content shareable Tools Subject Object Division of Labour Community Rules Content shareable Outcome: Open Education resources Keep in mind that although the three key reasons given below enable academics to contribute OER they are also potential barriers. The academic who referred to teaching materials as being “readily accessible” also mentioned that other courses were not as media rich and could not stand alone “ Not all teaching materials are readily accessible in terms of structure and content...other courses we teach are not so full of such rich multimedia materials...” Enablers: Technological ability Tools Subject Object Division of Labour Community Rules Outcome: Open Education Resources Technological ability One academic described how for years he had been recording his lectures and putting them up on his website. He had set up a system that meant he could easily do this. However he felt “ it’s going to be hard to get everyone to buy into a uniform model...you know people get stuck in their ways...” “...I have set up a system over the years and it easy for me to record lectures and share them...it’s going to be hard to get everyone to buy into this sort of uniform model...” Enablers: Small grants Tools Subject Object Division of Labour Community Rules Outcome: Open Education resources Small grant One of the academics who was interviewed who had contributed was a “OpenUCT’ grant holder. We started to allocate small grants and 800 pounds for academics to employ students, illustrators, web designers and/or desktop publishers in order to adapt existing materials or develop new materials. ( We allocated 14 grants in 2011 and will do more this year). This small grant meant a student could adapt existing materials. “...the grant bought student time to adapt the materials...” Enablers: stage in career Tools Subject Object Division of Labour Community Rules Outcome: Open Education resources Stage in career A commerce professor stressed how it was his stage in career that enabled his sharing. He added that the nature of commerce is to make money in corporate and sell courses and text books- NOT share “...I am at the stage in my career where I am not worried about making money from text books...’...” What can be done? In the light of these findings Transforming academic practice Tools Subject Object Division of Labour Community Rules Outcome: Open Education resources e.g. lecture recording, repository Alt metrics, Citations and credit in University reward system Cases of use and feedback Part of academic practice, support and small grants Transform the activity Awareness of need and purpose Tools: Ease of use and convenience Rules: Reward excellent teaching. Eliminate concerns about promotion for research only and reward great teaching materials which will allay concerns about the quality of materials. Community Show cases were OER;s are used well and effectively in the class or for learning. DOL Outcome: Transform the activity so that teaching materials are open and copyright free and great quality from the start! Open Education: some questions Is it a personal philosophy or can ‘we’ grow a culture of sharing within our institutions? What are the enabling factors to support open practices for academics? “It’s part of my campaign”Using Perceived Attributes as a framework to understand postgraduate students’ adaptation of academics’ teaching materials as OER Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams & Michael Paskevicius Cambridge 2012 Conference 16-18 April 2012 Enablers and barriers to OER contribution       What encourages student tutors to create OER? Post-graduate students’ participation One way to support academics to rework existing materials is to use postgraduate students – Masters’ level – tutors, graduate assistants and interns Shuttleworth Foundation funding for 3 students in a department and 2 in the Centre for Educational Technology, Hewlett Foundation funding for 1 student in the Health OER project Process similar to that devised by the University of Michigan – DScribe process – participatory model for creating OER Research study Little published on practice or theoretical explanation of: “What might encourage postgraduate students to rework existing materials?” Case study research of 6 students 3 employed by a department (interviewed) 3 by OER projects 2 from the UCT OER project (interview & questionnaire) 1 from the UCT Health OER project (interviewed) Theory Use Moore and Benbasat’s extension of Rogers’ Theory of Perceived Attributes to explain the adoption of the new innovation of creating OER: Compatibility Departmental policy of sharing Departmental open initiatives Departmental website with open materials Academics’ personal websites Academics’ online textbooks Students’ community engagement Students’ online research activities Students’ engagement with social media Students’ interest in the OER content Students’ altruistic dispositions I like to link to university sites to help answer other peoples’ questions. It’s part of my campaign. (Student 2) Relative advantage Relative advantage (more institutional than personal) Institutional OER directory and/or repository Indexing system of materials Licensing system Funds available I think it’s good for their PR in some ways, just to have a centralised presentation from UCT [department] to say this is what we can provide, and say to anybody this is what you can look at. (Student 1) Ease of use Familiarity with dScribe process Ability to find alterative images Ability to use a range of software Knowledge of Creative Commons licensing So it takes work for the lecturers to create new content. Whereas what we did it did not require that much work from the lecturers side (Student 3). Status Perception that institution’s image will be enhanced Perception that department’s profile will be raised Perception that OER development enhances their CVs A good thing to be a part of; it looks good on your CV that always motivates people (Student 2). Voluntariness Willing to participate without payment Developing OER as part of community service I think we could have done it without being paid. Being paid was just a nice bonus (Student 1). … As you know we were paid to do this process, and we may have done it anyway, but it was good to get paid in order to help prioritize (Student 2). There is a specific amount of community service and volunteer that you must do. I don’t see why this can’t be on the list, this thing is so big like building a house, important … they should put that on the list (Student 4). Visibility Presence of OER platform For many academics, there would have been no place previously where they could share teaching resources they were really proud of. So the project provided avenues for academics to share the content they created, providing visibility for themselves and the university (Student 6). Result demonstrability Alterative metrics for measuring use of OER As one can … track when social media is accessed, one can develop new metrics for measuring impact and engagement with the wider community (Student 6). Trialability Control over uploading of OER Yea there will be a link on the [departmental] web site. So perhaps what I can do is also put the links on the OpenContent. But we are sort of in the middle of trying to decide whether to post them locally or put them on YouTube. YouTube has its advantages and we cannot stream video locally. So we will probably offer both local download and YouTube (Student 3). What encourages student tutors to create OER? References Moore, G.C. & Benbasat, I. (1991). Development of an instrument to measure the perceptions of adopting an information technology innovation. Information Systems Research, 2(3): 192-222. Rogers, E.M. (1983). Diffusion of Innovations (3rd edition). New York: The Free Press. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 South Africa License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/za/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA. Authors Laura Czerniewicz Laura.Czerniewicz@uct.ac.za Glenda Cox Glenda.Cox@uct.ac.za Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams cheryl.hodgkinson-williams@uct.ac.za Michael Paskevicius mike.vicious@gmail.com Gregory Doyle Gregory.Doyle@uct.ac.za OpenContent Directory: http://opencontent.uct.ac.za Companion site on Vula: https://vula.uct.ac.za/portal/site/openuct OER UCT project blog: http://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/oer-uct OpenUCT Initiative: http://openuct.uct.ac.za/OpeningScholarship : http://openingscholarship.uct.ac.za/ Follow us: http://twitter.com/openuctPresentations: http://www.slideshare.net/laura_Cz